Women from different species, including humans, who had better help and support have better chances of survival. What can we learn from mother nature? Sarah B. Hrdy professor emerita at the University of California Davis, and Associate in the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology at Harvard talks about her books: Mothers And Others, The Woman That Never Evolved, and Mother Nature.

Listen to Greg and Sarah as they discuss allomotherhood and alloparenting, foundational concepts that ensured humans will continue to survive and evolve. As humans, we often neglect the fact that there is so much to learn from mother nature, the animals, and relate them to our society.

Tune in to the end and learn how shared care, concern for others, and the intense need to socialize and be cared for became key to human survival. Sarah talks about how these concepts relate and is evident in society and modern issues like daycare, women empowerment, birth control, and familial unit setup.

Episode Quotes:

On language and grammar pushing the human race forward:

“Grammar is really a tool for helping someone else understand what you're saying. Much about humans is about helping others. Understand what we're thinking and feeling.”

Why is great daycare important for modern parenting and empowering more women and families?

“Even though I think an extended family is often in many ways going to be advantageous over most daycare in the United States. A good daycare is really a gift to mothers and children growing up, and to fathers. But for so long, our debate has been over well, are we going to have Mothercare or daycare? When in fact the debate should have been, how do we make daycare better?”

Thoughts on modern housing and architecture:

“There's an additional problem which is architecture and the way our housing is designed. Everybody wants to be in these independent houses. I noticed years ago when I was at UC Davis that the graduate students who were living in student housing but had young children were actually better off than the ones who were in their independent apartments.”

On how to really empower young women:

"We're not providing them with the sex education and birth control they need. To me, this is like sending someone up into an airplane without pressurizing the cabin. It's just wrong. And I'm disgusted that some of the institutions I'm most involved with they put women's career opportunities top of the radar. They really want women to have equal pay and so forth."

Show Links:

Alloparenting and Allomothers: Learning How to Parent from Mother Nature feat. Sarah Hrdy

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc